For struggling families, the availability of planned or emergency respite services can play a critical role in reducing or preventing out of home placement. Walker Respite was created to support families and allow high-risk and behaviorally complex children to live at home and remain in their communities. Walker Respite is available for children between the ages of 5 and 13 with significant social, emotional, and behavioral needs. These are children who require the support of a highly specialized and therapeutic environment and for whom respite care by extended family or foster family respite is not appropriate.The program is designed to meet the special needs of children with high-risk behaviors, complex behavioral issues, mental illness or developmental disabilities. As these children typically require a high level of vigilant adult supervision and support, their needs can place enormous strain on a family or foster family.
> Campus-Based Respite Care> In-Home Respite Care
Walker Campus-Based Respite provides children with structured and therapeutic recreational activities while enabling parents and other family members to have a "break" from the intensive demands of caring for a child with complex special needs. For the child, a weekend or school vacation respite program provides the necessary structure to keep the child "out of trouble" in the community or at home. In addition, the child can benefit from the structured recreational activities—opportunities for developing improved social skills, cooperating with unfamiliar peers, and learning to form new friendships.
Walker In-Home Respite is primarily a child care service provided by a Walker outreach worker in the family home and is designed to be used as a short-term or transitional intervention until other accommodations for adequate long-term child care can be explored and consistently arranged. In-Home Respite can be a particularly useful service component of a child's planned transition home, after time spent in a residential placement. In-Home Respite workers can be available to care for a child in his or her home with a wide variety of flexible schedule arrangements. This service can be used on an occasional basis or on a fixed schedule for a limited period. Families utilizing In-Home Respite may also access Walker's 24-hour on-call service at any time, if needed. A social worker is able to advise parents on how to manage a crisis situation, and if necessary, help to facilitate emergency Campus-Based Respite or other placement.
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